by Hilary Boyd
Connie had grinned back. Now that the initial shock of bumping into Jared had worn off a little and she had some perspective, she was feeling more optimistic. I can make him see sense, she told herself. He’s not going to stick around once I’ve made my position clear. Now, watching her husband drive off to his board meeting, she had only one mission: to see Jared and make absolutely sure he left the village.
She waited till dark. The last thing she needed was gossip. The Williamsons, in the cottage to the right of Jared’s, were old and would be firmly ensconced in front of the television, curtains closed, as soon as they’d finished their tea. She’d been past often enough with Riley to know. The house on the other side was another of the many owned by weekenders: a young London couple who rarely came down outside the summer months. ‘Please, please be in,’ she muttered to herself, as she walked briskly through the village streets, Riley in tow as cover.
As she approached, she breathed a sigh of relief. The lights were on, and she could see Jared through the window, stirring something at the stove. Heart in her mouth, but still determined, she opened the catch on the low picket gate and walked up the path to the door. It was cold tonight, colder than it had been so far this autumn, but she didn’t feel a thing.
‘Connie!’ he greeted her, wooden spoon still in his hand. ‘Come in, come in. You’re just in time to sample my pumpkin soup.’ His smile and easy greeting implied this was the most natural event in the world, her popping round with the dog for a spot of soup.
With trepidation, she followed him into the warm kitchen. Everything looked new, a bit too clean and organized. A bottle of red wine was open on the table, and without asking, he fetched a glass from the cupboard and poured some for her.
‘This is a nice surprise,’ he said, lifting his own drink and holding it out to chink with hers. ‘Salud!’
Connie found herself complying as she touched her glass with his, but she did not echo his good wishes, taking only a tiny sip of wine, as if it might poison her. He was looking at her, waiting for her to speak. But now she was here, the words she’d rehearsed so often dried on her lips. It felt oddly normal in the kitchen, Jared relaxed, looking younger, she thought, in his jeans and a white T-shirt, his arms still tanned from his mysterious wanderings, brown hair streaked gold by the sun. She quickly looked away.
‘Take a seat,’ Jared said, lifting a couple of soup bowls from the open shelf at the end of the row of kitchen units, and placing them on the table. ‘Spoons,’ he muttered, finally plumping for the drawer to the right of the cooker. A row of foil and clingfilm rolls greeted him, and he shut the drawer and tried the one on the other side. ‘Geronimo!’ He brandished two spoons at Connie, then put them both on the table beside the bowls. ‘Still getting used to the place,’ he added.
Connie experienced a strange snapshot, as if she were in an alternative version of her life, where Devan didn’t exist, and she lived in this cottage with Jared and Riley. She watched Jared pour the thick orange soup. ‘Sorry, no parsley. Have to make do with a little drizzle of olive oil and a grind of pepper,’ he said, pushing her bowl across the table and turning to find the oil and pepper.
She did not touch the bowl. Smelling the soup, she realized she was very hungry – she’d barely eaten in the last few days. But she was not going to drink a single drop, aware that the onion-scented warmth of the dimly lit kitchen was having an irresistibly soporific effect on her fatigued state – the toll of so many sleepless nights. She sat up straighter on the stool, pinching the skin on the back of her hand until it hurt. She was here for one reason only. She must stay alert, force Jared to see things from her perspective, not give in to the seductive domesticity he was peddling.
‘I didn’t know you cooked,’ she said into the silence.
‘A kitchen designer who doesn’t cook would be a tad peculiar.’
He was smiling at her, and she smiled back. Jared refilled his wine glass and began his soup. He glanced across at her untouched bowl, ‘I thought you liked pumpkin,’ he said.
‘Sorry … not hungry,’ she replied. He gave a calm shrug.
When he’d finished eating, neither of them speaking, he stood to clear both bowls, then bent to the under-counter fridge and drew out a packet of choc ices from the freezer compartment, laying a cellophane-wrapped bar in front of her – again without asking if she wanted it – and taking one for himself.
‘Love these. Haven’t had one in years. I saw them in Waitrose and couldn’t resist.’
Connie also loved them, but she shook herself. ‘Jared …’
He held up his hand to stop her. ‘I know what you’re going to say. I can’t be here. I have to leave. I’m ruining your life …’ When she didn’t speak, he went on, ‘But this isn’t ruining anything. What’s wrong with soup and a glass of wine between friends?’ When she still didn’t answer, he said, ‘I’m not leaving, Connie.’
She winced at the resolve in his words. ‘God, Jared. You’re not being rational. There’s no way on this earth we can be friends,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘After what happened between us? Surely you realize that could never work.’
He gave her a smile, which implied she was being simple. ‘I really don’t see what the problem is. I can be around you all day long and not give a single thing away. Can’t you?’
Connie let out a frustrated sigh. ‘You’re missing the bloody point. What the hell do you hope to gain by being here?’ She took a deep breath, preparing for another strike. ‘OK, let me tell you again. I don’t want to see you ever again.’ She spoke loudly and slowly. ‘Or have any contact with you of any sort … I just want you to leave the village, never come back.’ It sounded harsh, even in the circumstances, and she winced at her own words.
He didn’t seem upset, however. He nodded calmly. ‘So you keep telling me, Connie. And I hear you.’ He paused, his gaze suddenly fervent. ‘But what you don’t seem to get is that I can’t just let you go. I can’t simply discard the feelings I have for you, like so much rubbish, just because you’re married. Your marriage has absolutely no relevance to how I feel about you.’
Struggling to make sense of what he was saying, Connie tried one more time to gather a coherent argument. Something that would finally convince him that he was whistling in the wind. ‘Of course it has relevance, Jared.’ She spoke forcefully, although she did not raise her voice – it was vital that he listen. ‘It means we can’t be together.’
Jared lifted his hands in the air triumphantly and grinned. ‘You say that, but here we are, together. The sky hasn’t fallen in. Riley still sleeps by my feet, the cottage still stands, Devan is none the wiser.’
Connie, up against the barricade of his skewed logic, felt only tired. ‘You don’t know what this is doing to me,’ she said quietly. Her choc ice was still in its cellophane, untouched on the table – although Jared had munched through his, spraying shards of dark chocolate onto his T-shirt – and she knew that inside the shell it would now be mush.
Jared, hearing her despair, was instantly by her side. Before she had a chance to stop him, he was leaning down to envelop her shoulders in his arms, but she stiffened, quickly pushing him off and rising from her stool to face him. ‘Listen. I’m sorry if I misled you, Jared. Truly I am. But this has to end … right here, right now.’
He reached out and squeezed her upper arms between his palms. Shuddering inwardly, she shook herself free, moving back out of his reach.
‘Never apologize, Connie,’ he said, his words uncomfortably intense. ‘If I hadn’t met you, my life would be totally meaningless – like it’s always been, till now.’ She noticed the tears again, blurring the turquoise. But unlike last time, they did not move her. Instead they frightened her. What the hell does he mean, ‘till now’?
‘Riley!’ she called sharply to the sleeping dog and turned to pick up his lead and her coat, both of which she’d slung on the hooks in the hallway. When she turned back, Jared was between her and the front door. For a split second
she wondered if he would prevent her leaving – she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes in the half-light.
She moved purposefully forward, heart pounding in her throat. At the same time, Jared stepped towards her, and swooped. His mouth was almost on hers, his arms reaching around her body, but she jerked away with a loud, ‘NO!’
Riley, sensing something wasn’t right, bounced up between them, paws on her jeans, driving his nose into her thigh, barking furiously. It was what he sometimes did when she and Devan kissed.
Forced to let her go, Jared actually laughed. ‘Guardian of your virtue,’ he said, rubbing the dog’s head affectionately.
Coat under her arm as she clipped on Riley’s lead, Connie straightened and roughly pushed him aside.
‘Don’t go,’ she heard him call, as she yanked up the stiff iron latch and ran down the wet path to the gate, dragging the dog behind her. It was late and raining hard. No one was about at this hour. Without looking back, she crossed the road and reached the corner that led into the arcade, only letting out her breath when she knew she could no longer be seen from Jared’s cottage.
Closing her own front door with relief, she let Riley loose and leaned against the wall in the dark hall, burying her face in her hands. She wasn’t crying. She was too furious to cry. Good job, Connie McCabe. Bloody great job. You’ve just made a bad thing a whole heap worse, you stupid woman. She should never have gone.
21
Neil and Brooks adored fireworks, Connie loathed them, and Devan was ambivalent. But they always attended their friends’ bonfire party, it being a three-line whip. Neil was simply unable to fathom why anyone would not enjoy such a life-enhancing spectacle. Every November, regular as clockwork, he would start on at her. ‘You really need to get in touch with your inner child, Con.’
To which she annually retorted, ‘I have. My inner child really hates fireworks, Neil.’
Now she and Devan were driving the dark lanes to Neil’s house in the next village. Connie was dressed in so many layers that she felt as if she’d been mummified. But it was unseasonably cold, temperatures hovering around two degrees. On her feet she had an old pair of moon boots, found at the back of Caitlin’s cupboard from a school ski trip – lilac, glittery, furry, with tiny images of Disney princesses, quite hideous. But at least numb toes were not going to be her problem tonight.
Devan glanced at her, chuckling as he drove. ‘Were there any clothes left in the wardrobe?’
‘You can tease all you like,’ she replied, ‘but when you’ve been standing on that windy terrace for three hours, no sensation from the knees down, your nose turning black and snapping off into your mulled wine, you’ll regret your decision to choose style over substance – even if it is Barbour, even if you do always feel the need to compete with Brooks.’ Which was a hiding to nothing, anyway. Neil’s husband, a retired Barclays’ executive, always dressed in immaculate Italian chic and had the honed, broad-shouldered physique of an athlete.
Devan was laughing as he turned into the open gates at the house. ‘Smile, please. Don’t want to curdle the mulled wine.’
Connie did smile, because despite putting on a jokily cantankerous show for Devan, she was secretly pleased to be there, to be out. It was the first time in two weeks – since that night in Jared’s cottage – that she’d been social. She knew it was impossible for Jared to have become friendly with the entire village already, but she wasn’t going to risk it.
‘I still get really tired by the evening,’ was the excuse she’d given Devan for not coming with him to a talk in the village hall. It was by a famous TV forager and naturalist, who was going to show them how to pick the right mushrooms – she’d bought tickets months ago. She was still coughing, and she did get tired, but still …
‘I’m worried I’m coming down with something,’ was the get-out for Fiona Raven’s book launch in Bridgwater – to which she was supposed to be going with Neil. In other circumstances she would have loved to catch up with past colleagues and giggle with Neil at their old boss’s predictable gush and swagger.
Devan had begun to notice. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he’d asked her a couple of nights ago, when she’d declared she was going to bed immediately after supper – really just wanting to get away from Devan so she could stop pretending. ‘You seem so tense at the moment. Is something bothering you?’
‘No.’ She’d feigned surprise. ‘I’m fine.’
He’d frowned and searched her face. ‘You’re not worrying about your job, are you? They’re not going to sack you for being ill, Connie. It was only two tours you cancelled.’
She had barely considered her job, her mind so consumed with Jared that she seldom had any other thought in her head. ‘I’m still feeling a bit below par, if I’m honest.’ She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘How would you feel about getting away? Fit in a week before Christmas, somewhere nice and warm. We could swim and lie about, read …’
Now it was Devan’s turn to look surprised. ‘It’s a great idea. Where could we go?’
Connie didn’t mind, as long as it was as far away from Jared as possible. Maybe he’ll have vanished by the time I get back, she thought, like a child with a hand over her eyes – if she can’t see you, you can’t see her. In fact, she hadn’t caught even a glimpse of him since that night.
Devan was on his laptop, searching winter breaks, almost before she’d left the room, although she knew it would change nothing.
Now Neil embraced her, then stepped back, a wide grin on his face. ‘Very Scott-of-the-Antarctic, darling … and I’m sure you had a gun to your head when you put those on.’ His nose wrinkled as he noticed her boots.
In fact, her feet were stewing in them. The car had been hot and she felt her toes throbbing now. She longed to wrench the ridiculous things off.
Neil gave Devan a hug, too, and led them through the elegant 1930s art-deco house – flat roof, parquet floors, curved windows and a gorgeous timber staircase – to the wide terrace behind. About twenty-five people were there, many faces she recognized in the glow from the lanterns lining the low stucco wall and the huge bonfire that burned merrily at the bottom of the steps leading down to the garden.
Brooks, in a sleek, padded navy jacket and tartan scarf knotted European-style round his neck, was standing at a king-size barbecue, wielding tongs and holding forth to a group of friends clutching beers. On one end of the barbecue there was a capacious preserving pan and ladle, steaming with Neil’s mulled wine. At the other, sausages and spicy lamb chops sizzled near skewers of prawn and vegetables, and crisping chicken wings. The pungent smell of roasting meat made Connie’s mouth water.
Neil handed her a glass of his infamous concoction. The wine felt pleasantly warm between her palms. Despite the heat from the bonfire, the barbecue and the press of people, the air was cruel, icy on her cheeks.
Devan gave her a nudge. ‘Not too bad so far!’ And he was right. The wine was going straight to her head, she was beginning to relax …
It was a while later when Neil grabbed her arm. Piled plate in hand, she turned. ‘Connie, I’m dying for you to meet Jed,’ he said, indicating the man by his side. ‘We bonded at the Raven’s book launch.’ She swallowed hard, coughed as if she might choke, her plate wobbling dangerously in her hand. The eyes that were staring directly into hers sparkled in the candlelight. ‘He’s a kitchen designer and he’s just moved into your village.’ His last words were almost lost in the heavy pulsing of blood in her ears.
Dizzily, she managed a weak ‘Hello,’ shrugging at Jared’s outstretched hand, as she indicated her own, clamped firmly round her plate and fork.
‘Hi, Connie,’ ‘Jed’ replied, smiling that intimate smile of his.
Her stomach lurched. Devan was beside her, but with his back to them, talking to a man she didn’t know.
‘We had such a laugh,’ Neil was saying. ‘Jed had the exact same experience as me with our esteemed employer, didn’t you, Jed?’
Jared n
odded. ‘Nightmare. She was all over me like a rash at first. Then I did something she didn’t approve of – God knows what, I never found out – and she turned on me, made my life hell for about six months.’
Connie had a glassy smile nailed to her face. Neil was speaking again, but she had no idea what he was saying. Sounds of the party faded. The only thing in her field of vision, in her entire consciousness, was the man in front of her. As if they were all alone on the freezing terrace.
Then Devan, his other conversation over, wheeled round. Connie almost gasped. But, astonishingly, her husband was grinning, holding out his hand to shake Jared’s warmly.
‘Hey, great to see you again.’ He turned to her. ‘This is the guy I told you about, Connie. Remember? Me and Bill met him in the pub.’ He turned back to Jared again. ‘So, have you moved in yet?’
‘Been there a few weeks now.’
‘How’s it going? Not too quiet for you?’
‘It’s perfect,’ Jared said, glancing at Connie. ‘I’ve had things to sort out back at my other place but I’ve pretty much done that now. Just a few more boxes to go.’
‘Listen, got to circulate,’ Neil said, putting one arm round Jared, the other round Connie. ‘But let’s all get together and have a bitch-fest about La Raven, eh? We could do Angie’s for a coffee … I’m around till the end of November now.’ He grinned at Devan. ‘You can come too, of course. But you might be shocked.’
‘Shocked’ was how Connie was feeling right now. Her head was spinning as she imagined the impossible scenario of her, Neil, Jared, and maybe Devan too, sitting cosily round one of the wobbly metal tables at Angie’s, sipping Gajah Mountain blend and reminiscing about Fiona. How come Jared worked for her? It seemed an extraordinary coincidence.
The others were laughing as their host made off towards Brooks and had an earnest conversation in his husband’s ear. Connie watched her friend. Anything but look at Jared, who was now asking Devan if he was interested in craft beer.